`PARACHUTE Regiment flags have gone up in the mainly loyalist villages of Newbuildings and Drumahoe in County Derry ahead of the looming 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday.
 
It’s nothing new. Squinter’s wedding anniversary is in January and on the couple of occasions he and the missus have spent it in Derry Para flags have been on the lampposts at Drumahoe, which lies on the main route into Derry from Belfast, and at Newbuildings, which is just south of Derry on the road to Strabane.
 
Para flags taunting the families of the Bloody Sunday dead are one of the more depressing spectacles in a year marked by quite a number of depressing spectacles. And while Para flags in loyalist areas in Belfast are met pretty much with a shrug of the shoulders these days, they are immeasurably more problematic in Derry – and not just because the 1972 massacre of the innocents took place there.
 
Derry has for some time been an exemplar of how the marching season could look in Belfast if a modicum of mutual respect was observed and a sliver of dialogue was considered. The Apprentice Boys happily march round the city’s historic walls in August to commemorate the relief of Derry while people go quietly about their business and then the brethren get back on their buses and head home. And then they come back in December to mark the Closing of the Gates and another enjoyable day is had, this time with a pleasingly festive backdrop. Who gains if a small number of Derry loyalists poison that particular well?

Not for the first time, Squinter took to Twitter to comment on how “depressing” he found the Para flag displays in Derry. Loyal Ulster wasn’t long leaping to the defence of the Newbuildings lamppost jockeys and the Drumahoe boy soldiers.

‘Belfastonian’ chipped in: “As depressing as IRA apologists in government.”
‘British Ulster’ squared his shoulders, puffed out his chest, saluted the long way up and barked a short message: “Get used to it.”
‘Hotpaddy1981’ went right to the heart of the matter: “What we’re armed pira sf members Doing at a peaceful civil rights march???????”
 
‘Robert McAuley’ chipped in with a bit of sharp analysis: “Depressing that you don’t commemorate the three young RUC men slaughtered on the Saturday or the 78 in the previous three months or that you don’t recognise burning and rioting and McGuinness with his Thomson sub-machine gun.” 

‘Dee’ injected a welcome dash of mathematics to proceedings: “The very same people who are offended also think Marty the Butcher was a hero. Even though he was responsible for more innocent Irish civilian deaths in Derry than the Paras.”
 
‘North Down Red’ wasn’t falling for Squinter’s act: “Republican faux outrage and fury… who’d have thunk it?” and went on “Unionists would be more amenable to your point of view if it wasn’t for the multitude of shrines, memorials and murals to the provos throughout Co. Londonderry and beyond. Republican hypocrisy knows no bounds.”
 
‘Fred Crawford’ replied: “And would you say the same of the OC of the Derry brigade of the PIRA being elected to government? What kind of an impact did that have on the isolated Unionist community in Londonderry?” Fred Crawford, of course, is the UVF gunrunner who lost the toss with Edward Carson for the statue at Stormont.

Is a rearguard action going be enough to save Captain Beattie?

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YOU kinda know it’s bad when a politician makes a mistake which can’t be published in a newspaper.
 
Doug Beattie was clearly in a relaxed mood on Saturday evening when he decided that it was time to make Twitter a more “human” place by posting a joke, or at least what he described as a joke. Squinter’s bound by the same rules of decency and taste that preclude other media outlets from publishing the details of the joke, so all that can be said without upsetting the horses is that the hilarious anecdote involved him and Edwin Poots and his wife, to whom no first no name was given. The punchline consists of a rather outré scenario involving Mrs Poots and the distinctive aroma of a brothel.
 
One of the attractions of Twitter is its agility and immediacy, and before you could say “Ooooh, matron!” Captain Doug was in a foxhole with mortars exploding all around him. At first he was content to lie on the ground with his hands over his ears, but when it became clear that offensive measures were required, he deleted the tweet that night.
 
The onslaught died down as the Twitter battalions bunked down and Doug spent a no doubt restless night with his helmet pulled down over his face. But in the morning the bombardment renewed and he was forced to launch a counter-attack. Captain Doug brought in air support in the form of an apology, but when the first strike missed the target, two more were ordered. With cries of “Incoming!” continuing to echo in his ears, Captain Doug launched an all-out infantry attack on the Assembly chamber and the radio studios, where he established strategic positions and proceeded to launch artillery barrages.
 
By 1500hrs on the Monday there were signs Captain Doug had regained control of the battlefield. While he’d suffered significant losses, the onslaught was weakening and troop morale on the rise. Then Twitter scored a direct hit on UUP HQ. 

Unexploded tweets from 10 years ago detonated with devastating impact and suddenly Captain Doug was not only back in the foxhole – he had his trench shovel out and was trying to make it to Australia. If the Poots joke was unsuitable for print or broadcast, the new (or should that be old?) ones would be unsuitable for the top shelf in a newsagent’s shop. Social media winced audibly as they appeared one after the other.
 
A chastened Captain Doug was ordered by high command to face the men. “Since I made my unreserved apology in relation to a tweet at the weekend, I have been made aware of a number of historic (sic) tweets which I published. I am deeply ashamed and embarrassed by the content of these tweets. They are totally unacceptable. They do not reflect the opinions or values I hold today.”
 
Interesting how social media has twisted the meaning of the word ‘historic’ in relation to content (though Doug meant to say ‘historical). When Squinter was at school, the Famine or the Battle of Waterloo were historic. These days it seems historic means anything that took place before the Tiger King guy got locked up. Doug’s 56, he was 46 when he published the tweets and fresh from a 28-year career in the British Army – hardly a pimply cadet. He says the 2012 tweets do not reflect what he is today, but 10 years on and he’s still spending his down time tweeting off-colour jokes with women as the butt of the humour. Go figure.
As you were, Captain.      


 
Royal secrets have their own secrets

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THERE’S a legal hearing coming up in London. It’s an odd one, so apologies if this gets a little involved.
 
The hearing is a legal challenge to a decision to exclude the media from a secret hearing. This secret hearing will decide whether the late Duke of Edinburgh’s will should be kept secret.
 
You still there? Good. As you can see, this is indeed fairly complicated, so perhaps a brief recap will help.
 
A hearing will decide whether a secret hearing can take place about a secret will or whether the secret hearing should not be secret. What’s that you say? That’s made things worse? Sorry about that.
 
The whole thing’s already a bit of a dog’s dinner, if entirely in keeping with the arcane and deliberately exclusive nature of British royalty. But when you then move on and consider what will be revealed in the will – whether it’s kept secret or not – then confusion fuses instantly with indignation. Because, quite simply, what the will will divvy out are the money and things given to him by ordinary sods who knocked their pans in day in and day out to enable him to fly round the world first class and stay in five-star accommodation to insult the locals. Otherwise known as us.
Keep that to yourself.